


Old Bones

by GloriaMundi



Series: Parole [1]
Category: Pirates of the Caribbean
Genre: C17, Gen, Historical, POV First Person, Pirates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-09-17
Updated: 2006-09-17
Packaged: 2017-10-05 20:50:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,793
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/45911
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GloriaMundi/pseuds/GloriaMundi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Friends reunited. Jack hasn't changed a bit.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Old Bones

"Captain Sparrow!"

I'd recognise him anywhere: that reeling sway, as if he's sober only at sea. (As if Jack Sparrow were ever sober!) I'd know him anywhere, though it's years since we met. He hasn't changed a bit.

Perhaps he doesn't remember me, though I bound us close by what I did on the deck of the _Black Pearl_ that day. Perhaps he's forgotten, or perhaps the years have altered me so greatly that --

"Elizabeth!" he cries, turning, arms spread wide in welcome. "Still live and kicking, I see!" His smile's as bright as ever. The gold, and his old-fashioned coat and hat, and ... and _everything_, have brought him a little train of followers, small boys and simple-minded sailors. I'll bet Jack Sparrow never tires of attention.

"It's good to see you, Jack," I say -- truthfully, as it happens. "You're looking well." I let him embrace me. The smell's the same, musky sweat and salt water, rum and black powder. But I draw back from his kiss, because I still remember the taste of him and it's sharp with bitter betrayal.

His smile widens, sharpens. "And so are you, Miss Swann -- oh, I do beg your pardon, it's Mrs Turner now, is it not?"

I can't tell from his expression whether he's cruel or merely ignorant.

"Will's dead," I tell him, and the words still hurt coming out even after so long. "His ship was lost with all hands, rounding Cape Horn."

"I'm sorry to hear it," says Jack Sparrow, whipping his hat from his head and clasping it before him. "He was a good man."

"He brought you back," I say, and it comes out more accusatory than I meant.

"That too," says Jack Sparrow, straight-faced. "So, Elizabeth, what brings you to sample the proliferous, the profligate delights of Tortuga?"

"I live here," I say flatly. "I'm sure you remember the Faithful Bride, Captain Sparrow? I'm the proprietor, these days."

"Landlady of the Bride?" says Jack, his eyes raking me like a broadside. "How very apposite, if I may say so."

I'm tempted to slap him for that, and for the insolence in his eyes -- he really hasn't changed a bit! -- but I won't lower myself. "You may not," I snap.

"My apologies," says Jack, with that obsequious smile. "Carried away by the moment, I fear. It's a rare pleasure to encounter an old friend in such very unexpected circumstances."

"I might say the same," I counter. "What brings you to Tortuga, Jack?"

"Pirate," says Jack Sparrow, gesturing expansively.

"I don't see any pirates," I say, looking around at the bustling harbour. "Except one." My eyes settle on Jack Sparrow, and truly he's a marvellous sight, a living breathing legend. "Tortuga isn't a pirate port any more, Captain Sparrow. The Golden Age of Piracy is gone."

"So I've heard," says Jack. "But they say the _Dutchman_'s been seen in these waters: and I'm here to pay my respects, as it were."

"The _Dutchman_?" I say. Though the day's warm and the air sweet, I phant'sy I can smell salt and rankness. There's a shiver running up my spine like a rat. "The _Flying Dutchman_?" As though there could be another ship with that dire name. "What brings that abomination here?"

Jack shrugs, all innocence. "Maybe her Captain has business in these parts. How should I know? But come, Elizabeth." His gesture encompasses the riotous quay, stevedores staggering under bales of cotton and cordwood, whores importuning His Majesty's officers -- oh, the Navy's everywhere these days -- and small boys scurrying here and there, avid for pennies. "Surely two old comrades might renew their acquaintance in more salubrious surroundings than these? Perhaps I could call upon you at the Bride." The smirk becomes a leer. "We could sup together. In private."

My room at the top of the inn is musty with old papers, letters folded and stowed by sender and date and matter; bills of sale, laborious decryptions, philosophical treatises. Other people's secrets. And, too, the armaments of age: creams to make my skin supple, ointments to ease old bones, oils that promise to thicken my hair and keep me from the indignity of a wig.

"Certainly not," I say coolly. "But I'll dine with you elsewhere, Captain Sparrow, if you're so eager for my company."

His smile broadens as though I've given him the answer he wanted.

"Perhaps you'll do me the honour being my guest this evening," he says, glancing out to where the great ships lie at anchor. "I'm sure you've fond memories of the _Black Pearl_. And of her captain."

"Which captain?" I say archly. "One loses track."

_That_ wipes the smile from his eyes, though not from his lying mouth. "At sunset, Mrs Turner," he says. "I'll send a boat to meet you."

* * *

The _Black Pearl_'s as black as ever in the dusk. Black as her captain's heart, I tell myself feebly. Black as sin. Some days Jack Sparrow's wickedness pervades my thoughts: sometimes, like this evening, his misdeeds are only scenes from a play that I saw long ago.

As we approach, with the oars feathering phosphorescence from the calm sea, I can see that Jack Sparrow's done well by his ship. Her lines are sleek and clean, her sails inky-black and unpatched. There are no scars from the battles she's survived, nor the crushing weight of the ocean that's drawn her down twice. Like her captain, she appears unscathed. Her figurehead smiles a remote gilded welcome as the gig draws near.

Jack Sparrow awaits me at the accommodation ladder, also smiling. His hands are gentle on my wrists as he helps me aboard.

"Delightful to see you, Mrs Turner. Or do you prefer to be known as Miss Swann, these days?"

I narrow my eyes at his bland tone. "You may call me Elizabeth." It's not that I welcome the familiarity, but I'd as soon not be reminded of the men I've loved and lost.

"Charmed," says Jack Sparrow, making a courtly bow and kissing my hand. Those ridiculous beard-braids scratch against my knuckles. I'd like to scrub away the itch they leave, but I've better manners than to do so while he's watching me.

He leads me below to the Great Cabin. When Barbossa had the _Pearl_, this was a gloomy place of candlelight and cobwebs, dark and forbidding. When Jack regained his ship, he had her scoured and scraped and swabbed from stem to stern. I remember sailing from Tortuga in his company, heartened by the clean simplicity of his tastes. Appearances, of course, can deceive. By then he'd already betrayed Will, sold him to Davy Jones, and all his honeyed words and hot glances were lies.

He pours me wine from Portugal, dark and rich with the taste of late summer. I thought I'd nothing to say to him, but with every sip of wine our conversation flows more easily as he draws me out. He's remarkably well-informed. We argue amicably about the American colonies' chances of independence; the waning of Dutch influence in the Far East; the droves of felons shipped to Botany Bay.

I forget that we're to dine until a pair of lads, scarcely into their teens, carry in steaming silver dishes and another flagon of ruby-red wine. There's a plate of green vegetables, oozing melted butter; a salver heaped with sliced fowl, crusted with a rich glaze; a crock of spiced fish stew, with scales and fins and crustaceous extremities poking out of it.

"Taking your revenge, Captain Sparrow?" I enquire, indicating an especially fat purple tentacle, its white suckers proving it some minuscule cousin of his nemesis, the Kraken.

"Revenge is a dish best served cold, they say," ripostes Jack, serving me a generous helping of the bouillabaisse, "while this, I assure you, is piping hot."

The food's excellent, better fare than I've found anywhere on Tortuga, and by common consent we apply ourselves to its consumption. My appetite -- for victuals, as for everything else -- has lessened over the years, but Jack devours his dinner as though he's been starved for weeks. He eats quickly but neatly, wiping his mouth on a fine linen cloth and sipping wine (not rum, to my surprise) from a crystal goblet that might once have graced my father's table.

"I'm glad to see you've still such enthusiasm for the mortal world, Jack."

Jack's mouth is full, but he raises an enquiring eyebrow.

"When Barbossa and his crew were cursed," I remind him, "they took no pleasure from food nor drink. Nor ..."

But the memory of that night, the night I first saw men who could not die, rises in my gullet like bile, and I must take a long, slow sip of wine to drive it back.

"Fortunate, really," says Jack, lifting his own glass. "A young, unmarried lass, alone on a cursed ship manned by plunderous pirates ... Serendipitous, that they were incapable of consummating their desires."

He's looking at me warmly, admiringly. I haven't felt so old for years. His sharp eyes see everything, and make me see it too, as though he's become my mirror. He's remembering me as I was, and though he says nothing I know that he's noticed each of time's unkindnesses. My grey hair, and the deep lines round my eyes where I used to stare at the sunlit sea, waiting for Will's ship to return. The leathery skin of my throat, where the stringy veins stand taut. The way my skin hangs loose on the frame of my bones.

"It's different for you, isn't it?" I say accusingly, desperate to stop him seeing me so clearly. "You're not ... not dead. Not cursed. You're alive, with a mortal man's ... appetites."

I didn't think I could still blush, but my face feels hot. Perhaps it's the wine, and not the thought (the memory) of Jack Sparrow's less gustatory enthusiasms.

"I've been dead," says Jack slowly, staring into the dark wine in his glass. He's suddenly solemn, and his smile's snuffed out like a light. "Every man must meet his death." His eyes are black as stone. "I've been dead, Elizabeth, and I didn't especially care for it. Life -- a pirate's life -- suits me very well. And there's a whole changing world to watch. Have you never wondered how things will turn out?"

"Why should I?" The lie's sour in my belly. "It's too late, Jack. The world's moved on. There's no room for the way things used to be. No room for legends, or curses, or heroes."

"You and I are the last true pirates, then," says Jack Sparrow, his eyes glittery-black and his smile unreadable. He refills his glass, and mine, and bids me drink to piracy.

I don't pick up my glass. "There's Barbossa," I say coolly.

"Ah yes," says Jack, "Captain Barbossa. I doubt he's still living by the Code now he's acquired the secret of eternal life. Not so easy, stepping into Davy Jones' boots. Boot." He grins, all gold, and drains his glass. "No, Elizabeth, you and I are the last of our kind."

I'm not the same kind as him. I'm not.

"You could never have wed your Commodore," says Jack.  "I beg your pardon: _Admiral_ Norrington, wasn't he, at one time? I wonder what became of him?"

I recognise that sly gaze too well. Time was I'd see it in the mirror.

"You know perfectly well what became of James Norrington," I snap. "The _Sorciere_ went down, off New Providence, engaging a pirate vessel."

"Now that you mention it, Mrs Turner," says Jack, "I do believe I heard a tale to that effect."

I'd never trust Jack Sparrow to give me an honest answer. But it's been so long, so long, and I've been wondering ... "Was it the _Black Pearl_?" I demand of him. "Was it you who sent him to his death?"

"No!" says Jack, and he looks as surprised as I am by his vehemence. "On my honour, Elizabeth," he says, grave as I've ever seen him, "I was far from these waters, that year. Knew nothing of it until much later. He was a good man. To James Norrington!"

I'll drink to that.

"Even if he did have some uncomfortable views about the just desserts of piracy," qualifies Jack: but he empties his glass.

 

"I miss pirates," I say dreamily, propping my chin on my hand. Let my gaze flick to him, and then away, as though I'm still that green girl who dreamt of running away to sea. "I miss them, Jack: and one most of all."

Oh, he's easy still. He smiles, and brightens, and sits up a little straighter in his chair: flicks his moustache into shape, brushes a crumb from his beard. It would be funny, if ... It _is_ funny.

"I miss Will," I say, and there's a miserable note in my voice that I could never have feigned. "I miss him, Jack. Every day." I lower my voice, and lean forward a little. "Every night."

Jack's staring at me again, examining me as though the truth is written in these lines on my face.

"'Twas all a lie, eh?" he says at last, casual as though he's speaking of ancient history. "You never wanted me at all. It was always bloody Will."

"I wanted what you had!" I blurt, before I can stop myself: and I bite my lip at the pleasure in his eyes.

"What I had?" says Jack Sparrow, finger to the corner of his mouth as though deep in thought. "The compass, was it? ... No? The _Black Pearl_?"

"No," I snarl.

"Me hat?"

"Your _freedom_, you fool!"

Like any man who lives by his wits, Jack hates to be called foolish. There's something fierce in his eyes as he slams his glass down, hard enough to strike a note from the crystal.

"Freedom?" he challenges. "Freedom can be taken, same as any other treasure. I can't help but wonder, Elizabeth: did you ever tell Will what you did, here on the _Pearl_? On this very deck?" He gestures at the boards above his head.

"Of course not!" I protest. "He'd never have ... understood."

"Ah well," says Jack, his smile touched with melancholy. "All came out right in the end, didn't it? For me, anyway." He proffers a basket of colourful fruit. "Apple?"

I shake my head. My teeth are still good, but not as strong as they were, and I refuse to let Jack see my weaknesses.

"You've weathered well, Elizabeth," he says, eyeing me insolently. "Excellent ... bones."

"And I s'pose you're a connoisseur?" I retort, before my thoughts can catch up with me. Or perhaps they've overtaken me already -- this wine's strong stuff, and my senses are reeling in a way they haven't for years -- because, clear as daylight in my head, I can see that cavern beneath the Isla de Muerta, so many years ago. I can see Jack Sparrow staggering and swaying in the moonlight, ivory and rags and gold, examining the gleaming lines of his own bones as though he's some walking miracle.

Typical Jack.

"You could say that," says Jack, with a smile that I might mistake for fondness if I saw it on another man's face. "One last drink?"

"Last?" I say, surprised. I glance at the great stern window. The moon's risen above the distant mountains of Jamaica, edging the choppy sea with tarnished silver. "The night's young yet."

Jack doesn't make the obvious rejoinder. Perhaps he's mellowed, after all. "Ah," he says, pouring me a scant half-glass of wine, "but a respectable lady such as yourself wouldn't want to accompany a disreputable and black-hearted pirate when he paid a call on an old comrade-in-arms."

"Who -- Barbossa?" My throat's dry, and I have to cough before I can continue. "You're going to meet Barbossa?"

"Aye," says Jack, holding his glass up in front of the lamp and admiring the crimson glow. "Principal purpose of my visit to charming Tortuga: paying my respects to the _Dutchman_ and her Captain. I'll give him your regards, shall I?"

"Certainly not," I say. Maybe it's the wine speaking for me: maybe it's the young Elizabeth Swann, waking beneath the weight of my years, reckless and hungry for adventure. "I'm coming with you."

* * *

A pair of young men stand ready to row us across to the _Dutchman_. They nod respectfully to Jack, and he beams impartially at them both. He's very pleased with himself. Have I said something that I shouldn't?

Against the cliffs, the _Flying Dutchman_ is a sinister patch of darkness. The breeze is freshening, and as it shifts I can smell the ship: that nightmare stench of rotting wrack and mould. I wonder if Bill Turner's still aboard. I wonder how many sailors Captain Barbossa has plucked from watery graves. The wine sours in my stomach, and I want to be sick (the choppy sea isn't helping) but I swallow hard, and suck shallow breaths of cool salt air. Not in front of glorious changeless Jack Sparrow.

We're almost there. I can see a tall man, cloaked and hatted, standing at the barnacled rail, watching our approach. It brings to mind the first time I saw Barbossa, like a devil in flickering torchlight. For a moment the years between then and now are just a tale I've read in a book: and I'm being brought captive to a man who's neither living nor dead.

"Are you quite positively certain that you wouldn't sooner go ashore, Elizabeth?" murmurs Jack, his hand on my shoulder. There's honest concern in his eyes.

I smile at him, and straighten my spine. "I'm all right, thank you."

"Sh'll we wait, Captain?" enquires the darker of the oarsmen, diffidently.

"Aye," says Jack. "I'll not be long."

"Jack Sparrow!" cries Barbossa as Jack -- nimble as ever -- hauls himself up the netting, and turns to help me. "And the beauteous Elizabeth Swann!" cries Barbossa, a black-toothed smile splitting his face.

I set my jaw. "Mrs Elizabeth Turner, to you. Good evening, Captain Barbossa." I stress the title just a little, for Jack's sake.

"Such a shame about your husband," says Barbossa, with a horribly avuncular smile. "Just think, if he'd chosen to sail under my command like his own dear father, the two of you might be reunited now."

He hasn't moved, yet it's as though he's reached out and taken me by the throat. I can feel the pressure of his skeletal fingers, stealing away my breath.

"That's hardly fair," Jack objects. "Teasing the lady with what she can never have, not in this world."

His voice is light and jesting. _He's_ not surprised by Barbossa's revelation. Bright bitter hatred flares behind my eyes.

"You knew!" I accuse him, but my voice is hardly more than a croak, and perhaps he can't hear me above the slap of waves against the hull, and the muted merriment of the sailors aft.

"Captain Barbossa," I say, clearing my throat and mustering my voice. I can empty the Bride with a few sharp words delivered in the right tone: surely I can quell an antiquated pirate captain?

"Aye, Mistress Turner?" Oh, how I'd love to wring the relish from his voice as he lingers on my name. Will's name.

"I was unaware that you had ... offered Will employment," I say icily. "Am I to understand that you were there when his ship was wrecked, off Cape Horn?"

"Perfectly understood," says Barbossa. "Him being an old acquaintance an' all -- not to mention the son of one of me crew -- I took care to save him from a watery fate. Shame Bootstrap weren't around to talk some sense into his boy, really," Barbossa continues, with a wistful look. "But then again, he din't have to see the lad choose death over life."

"He was a good man," avers Jack, doffing his hat. I don't know whether he means Bill Turner or Will. "Still," another mercurial shift of mood, "probably for the best, eh?"

"_What_ is?" says Barbossa, narrow-eyed.

"Why, that young Mr Turner didn't choose to serve," Jack elucidates. "You'd never have let him go, would you? And poor Mrs Turner would have to return to her lonely bed, twice bereaved."

"Jack!" I protest.

"Ah, Jack, Jack, I'd've let the lad go free ... if only the price were right," says Barbossa.

He looks at Jack, and Jack looks back at him. There's something unspoken between the two of them, something that I don't understand at all. Is Barbossa suggesting that Jack might have given himself up for Will? Or that Will had somehow taken Jack Sparrow's fate upon himself, just as Jack'd tricked him into doing long ago?

It's too late now. I wish I'd never come aboard the _Flying Dutchman_. I feel old, and tired, and sick. Will's dead. His honour and his courage were his undoing, at the end. I told him they'd be the death of him. Oh, how I wish I'd been wrong.

Barbossa's hand is resting on Jack's shoulder now. They're walking for'ard, side by side. I don't care to be left behind on the _Flying Dutchman_'s reeking, treacherous deck. None of the crewmen are near, but I can see the glimmer of their eyes, and the eerie glow of other parts of them. I hitch up my skirts and hurry after the two captains. Neither of them pause to wait for me.

"Men come and men go," Barbossa's telling Jack. "Fishermen and admirals, pashas and pirates. Men who want vengeance, and men who just want to live. Couldn't be doin' with straitlaced Will Turner's sullen looks for one year, let alone a hundred. His daddy was bad enough. But there's a score or two that I'd still like settled, Jack Sparrow."

Jack turns that glittery fairground smile full force on the _Dutchman_'s deathless captain. "Patience is a virtue," he assures Barbossa. "Trust me on this, mate. You'll find what you're seeking one day, same as ol' Davy Jones did. Then you'll be free, and the _Dutchman_'ll have a new captain."

"Oh, I'll find it all right," agrees Barbossa. My foot catches on a long riband of seaweed and I stumble: Barbossa checks, and glances back at me. "Or have it delivered."

"Or have it delivered," echoes Jack. He's silent a moment, and his smile's turned sly. "Well," he says sunnily, "I'd best be getting along. Here she is, Barbossa: though I reckon Elizabeth Swann's worth a mort of grimy sailors' souls."

What? _What?_ "Jack!" My voice is high and tight. There's no air in my lungs to force out the next words: the demand, the plea, the refusal. The denial.

"Aha," says Barbossa, chuckling, "but I seem to recall there's just the one soul that's taken your fancy, eh? Or am I misremembering the terms of our accord?"

"Accord?" I shriek. Jack takes no notice. I might as well be a ghost.

"Do feel free, Jack Sparrow, to pick ten of these foremast jacks." Barbossa waves a hand aft. "Any ten."  

"Not at all," protests Jack, palms out in a conciliatory gesture. "I'll hold to our deal, eh? Wouldn't want to leave you short-handed."

"What deal?" I cry, stepping between them. Fury's given me voice again, though it's sending the blood crazy in my veins and making me dizzier than any amount of wine. "What have you traded me for?"

"And there was me, thinking you'd be curious to see how it all came out," explains Jack Sparrow, all sweet reason. "Thinking you wanted another chance at life. Well, here's the man as'll give it to you." He nods at Barbossa, who leers at me.

"I didn't choose this!"

"Choice?" says Jack, with an elegant shrug. "Free will ain't all it's cracked up to be, love. At least you're not in chains, eh?"

"You tricked me," I say, anger prickling at my eyes.

"Pirate, love," says Jack, with his golden grin. "Take what you can --"

"-- Give nothing back," responds Barbossa, clapping Jack Sparrow on the shoulder so hard that Jack staggers towards me. Close enough to slap.

The impact goes right through me, making my elbow ache and my shoulder grind. The palm of my hand stings. It's a while since I've done that, and _never_ with such cause. Jack's skin, his flesh feels alive under my hand; more alive than my own.

Jack doesn't say a word to me, just smiles sharp and nasty. Raises his hand to his unmarked face, and nods to Barbossa. "I wish you well of her," he says. "Now: where is he?"

"Pass the word," says Barbossa conversationally, "for the Admiral."

I didn't notice the crewmen drawing close. I wish I hadn't noticed them now, but they're all around us. The word is passed, hissing and wet and bubbling and crackling, from abomination to abomination.

The Admiral? I'm afraid, now. Afraid I know whose life is worth my own.

He's carrying a lanthorn, and the friendly light precedes him, paling the corpse-candle glow of limbs and excrescences to an ashy grey. He's sea-changed like the rest of them. Are those gills fluttering at his neck? And is that some boneless extra arm that shoves back an over-inquisitive sailor? That's an admiral's hat he wears, nearly shapeless with salt water.

But his eyes, fixed unblinking on Jack Sparrow, are green as the sea, and the elegant shapes of his bones are unblurred by time and ocean.

"Forty-seven years," says James Norrington contemptuously to Jack. "Forty-seven years, three months and eight days of hell."

"Oh, this ain't hell," says Jack airily. His face is impassive, but I can practically feel his heartbeat racing. "Besides," he explains, "I had to negotiate the right price. Took a while."

Norrington looks around, as though gradually realising that the two of them aren't, after all, alone on deck. "Elizabeth?" he says. He sounds ... not dismayed, but surprised.

I can't meet his gaze. I stare down at the slimy green-grey deck and try to hold the tears back. There's salt water enough in the world.

"Oh," says Jack, cheerfully malefic, "she'd do the same for me."

"She would?" says Norrington doubtfully.

"No doubt of it," asserts Jack. He takes hold of Norrington's arm. "See you in a century, Lizzie!"

I've mastered myself now. I raise my face, dry-eyed, and let them all look at me. There's pity in Norrington's eyes, though whether that's for my old age or my new-found fate I can't be sure. Barbossa looks at me hungrily. An hour ago that look would have made me shudder: but I'm more than a match for him.

I can't read Jack at all, and that provokes me.

"I'll see you in a hundred years, Jack," I promise him. "I'll come and call on you."

"I shall look forward to it," says Jack, after the most infinetisimal pause. "Think of it as immortality, love."

"I don't want to live forever!" I cry furiously, holding up my spotted-parchment hands for them all to see. "Not like this!"

"Wonderfully rejuvenating, a life at sea," Jack assures me breezily. "Look at Tia Dalma. Look at your former fiance, here. Look at _me_. Though, actually, you'd best look at your new captain for now: Admiral Norrington and I must away."

And without another word, without a kiss, without a touch, without any apology sincere or otherwise, he's sauntering off to where the _Pearl_'s gig waits.

"So," I hear Norrington say to him, "I'm to sail under a pirate's command once more, am I?"

"If you think you're up to it, mate," says Jack cheerfully.

"James!" I call, willing myself not to run after the two of them.

Norrington stops, and Jack does too, flicking me a blackly exasperated look.

"James, are you just going to leave me here?" I implore him.

"Oh," says Norrington, "it's not so bad." He smiles ruefully, and something scuttles down his neck and under the collar of his shirt. I shudder. "Just do as the Captain orders, Elizabeth. I'm sure you can learn obedience."

Behind him, Sparrow gives me a cheerful little wave.

I hate him. I spin on my heel, determined not to watch them go -- and cry out as a scaled horror rises before me, something dark and rustling in its arms.

"Now, Elizabeth," says Barbossa unctuously, taking the dress -- the crimson silk dress -- and holding it out to me. "This fashion's doubtless out of mode nowadays. But then, you're an old-fashioned lass, ain't you?"

It's past bearing, and my nerve fails me. I rush to the rail. "Jack! Please, Jack!"

But none of the men in the gig looks up at my cry. The sound of the oars fades quickly, more quickly than Jack Sparrow's voice, into the pearly moonlit mist.

-end -


End file.
